ABC pitches $600k ‘most important job’

ABC Director of News, Analysis and Investigations Gaven Morris. Picture: AAP

Who has “the most important job in Australian journalism”, worth more than $600,000 a year?

According to the ABC, it is its very own departing news director, Gaven Morris, who we’re told will be walking away from the ABC’s Ultimo headquarters for the last time this Friday.

So important is the role the ABC even placed an ad for Morris’s replacement on page six of Saturday’s Weekend Australian. The ad began: “The ABC is seeking an outstanding leader …. for the most important job in Australian journalism.”

Saturday’s ad also hints it may be an advantage to have had some experience with the ABC previously, calling for someone who has “a strong connection with the ABC’s purpose and mission”.

ABC news director Gaven Morris. Picture: AAP

Surely that person couldn’t be Chris Uhlmann, the former ABC political editor who is now in the equivalent position at Nine, could it?

Interestingly, the job ad doesn’t appear to rule out candidates who have only worked in print. While it notes the successful candidate needs to have “extensive experience as a journalist (and) in senior leadership positions”, it leaves open the possibility that they don’t have to have come from the electronic media. The successful candidate will “ideally” have worked “within a broadcasting or publishing environment”.

And do we need to mention that it comes with an enviable pay package? In the 2020/21 financial year, Morris brought home $676,000 – including a base of $481,000, bonuses of $80,750 and super of $73,000.

One interesting feature is the ABC hasn’t named an executive search firm in the job ad, as it has with previous senior positions.

The text of the ad baldly states: “The ABC has retained a recruitment consultant to assist the ABC.”

But applications are to be sent to the ABC itself, not the recruiter.

Diary is reliably informed the search firm “assisting” Aunty is international headhunting giant Egon Zehnder, which also recruited a number of other senior ABC bosses including former managing director Michelle Guthrie. When we put to the ABC Egon Zehnder was involved with Morris’s replacement, the public broadcaster had no comment.

Meanwhile, there was no need for an exhaustive search process for another vacant key ABC role. As Diary predicted, RN Drive presenter and ABC News TV host ­Patricia Karvelas has been named as the replacement for Fran Kelly as Radio ­National breakfast host.

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Lisa admits book ‘not word for word’

For the first time, Lisa Wilkinson has admitted that her recollection of her last Today show appearance with Karl Stefanovic in her recent memoir may not be 100 per cent accurate about “words that were said” that day.

Speaking candidly to LiSTNR’s Shameless podcast after criticisms of the book in the media, Wilkinson concedes she wasn’t able to give a “word for word” account in her memoir of exactly what happened in 2017.

“In writing the book, obviously I had to recall what happened that morning at the desk, the words that were exchanged,” Wilkinson says. “And I wasn’t in a position to ring Channel 9 and ask for a copy of my final show, because — let’s just say — things didn’t end well. And I didn’t want to give anybody the satisfaction of laughing at me when I asked for a copy of it.”

Lisa Wilkinson. Picture: Getty Images

Instead, Wilkinson says what she included in the book was “an absolutely 100 per cent accurate assessment of the feeling at the (Today show) desk that morning”.

She tells podcast hosts Michelle Andrews and Zara McDonald the book had recalled “the disingenuous nature of conversations” that were had at the Today desk that morning.

“So on that level it’s accurate, but I didn’t have access to the tape of that morning’s show,” she says. “And that has been painted as somehow being an accurate reflection of the entire book. It’s just like, so I couldn’t remember word for word four years ago exactly the words that were said. So shoot me.”

But Wilkinson remains angry criticism of her account in the book about her last day on Today has been used to “discredit the entire book”, and question her overall credibility.

“There have been a lot of lies printed about me in the last few weeks since one particular extract of the book was published in isolation without any of the context of the entire book,” she says. “And I just decided that, as I have my entire life, I’m just going to play the long game here.”

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Tame not served by media ‘pedestal’

As Grace Tame’s term as Australian of the Year enters its last months, it has been hard to miss her wherever you look in the media, from The Project to virtually any show on the ABC. The media whirlwind that has pursued Tame throughout 2021 reached its natural zenith in last Monday’s Australian Story.

Grace Tame at the National Press Club in Canberra. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

But a few hours before Tame’s Australian Story screened, journalist and survivor advocate Nina Funnell, the founder of the ­#LetHerSpeak campaign that first launched Tame into the national spotlight, published a pointed series of tweets clearly timed to coincide with the flagship ABC show.

In a “clarification to media”, Funnell made it clear while she had no beef with the Australian of the Year herself, she was upset with continued reporting that presented Tame as the architect of the campaign.

“LetHerSpeak was not a campaign which Grace Tame ran & I reported on,” Funnell tweeted. “I created & ran it for 4 years, including the media, fundraising, legal & political strategy. I organised Grace’s legal work & that of another 17 survivors who Grace doesn’t know.”

Nina Funnell.

Funnell, who won last year’s public service journalism Walkley Award for founding #LetHerSpeak, went on to highlight her pivotal point. It is, she says, that the media created a perception the successful campaign to remove gag laws to allow sex abuse victims to identify themselves was “an individualistic campaign” by Tame alone, and “not a collectivist one” that had involved Funnell herself and 17 other sex abuse survivors.

“Grace has always been very clear she doesn’t want 2 take credit 4 anyone elses (sic) work,” Funnell posted. “Likewise, I want her courage in fronting the campaign & her bravery in allowing us to take her case to court, to always be recognised, valued & celebrated. When media misreport they hurt us both.”

When Diary asked Funnell last week what her clarifying words were about, she was equally forthright.

“None of this is Grace’s fault, but what was a long campaign involving a complex collaboration between News Corp, a law firm in Marque Lawyers, myself as the campaign leader and two survivor organisations has been simplified down to one individual who was featured in the campaign,” she said. “Unfortunately, that has erased or minimised the contributions of the 17 other survivors who we performed legal work for in order to help them to say their own name. And that has re-traumatised them.”

Funnell blames the media’s reporting of the issue, which she said erased the other survivors apart from Tame. “The media keep wanting to simplify the narrative to a poster girl for the issue and a simple sound bite,” she says. “But when you put individual women on a pedestal, you’re putting far too much pressure on their shoulders, by expecting them to fix a society-wide ill.

“We’re also doing a disservice to future activism, to misleadingly suggest that law reform is achieved by a lone individual.

“There have been numerous news reports this year, particularly by the ABC, that misrepresented it as ‘Grace Tame’s #LetHerSpeak campaign’, as opposed to a campaign that involved numerous survivors including Grace Tame.”

Funnell, who has had extensive contact with Tame throughout the campaign, says the media’s simplification to make her the “poster girl” for the issue has not served anyone, least of all Tame.

“Grace didn’t want to be responsible to field questions about the campaign,” she says. “She is fully aware that she wasn’t the architect of the campaign – instead, she featured in it and did so very courageously. Grace is as perplexed and uncomfortable with this as I am. And she has never sought to take credit for my work.”

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Mooney’s $1m-plus lawsuit against MMM

Things are getting ugly between Triple M and its departed star Lawrence ‘Moonman’ Mooney, with lawyers gathering at 20 paces as Mooney pursues a $1m-plus damages claim against his former employer. Diary is reliably informed Mooney’s lawyers lodged a statement of claim in the NSW Supreme Court at 4.55pm last Monday – five minutes before the day’s close – alleging “breach of contract” by Triple M’s owner, Southern Cross Austereo.

But what is likely to make it a landmark case is the potential size of the damages that Mooney is seeking.

It’s understood the departed Triple M star will be chasing “no less than $1m” in damages. That’s about the size of his annual base salary. He still had more than a year of his contract to run when it was abruptly cut short earlier this month.

Lawrence Mooney.

But take into account Mooney’s package is also understood to have included generous bonus components triggered by performance hurdles, and the final amount sought could blow out even further.

And that’s not to mention the very healthy legal fees involved for both sides in a Supreme Court action.

Mooney has recruited top employment lawyer John Laxon, who loves nothing more than a headline-making media court action, having most notably ­represented Mark Llewellyn against Channel 9 in the famous Jessica Rowe “boning” case.

A succession of high profile on-air talent has left the Triple M stable over the past year, most recently Mick Molloy, who announced earlier this month he was departing its national drive show.

That followed a string of other departures from Triple M including Eddie McGuire, Luke Darcy and Molloy’s former on-air partner, Jane Kennedy, in Melbourne alone.

But Mooney’s departure in Sydney appears to be the most acrimonious of them all, and all sides are gearing up for a long and drawn out fight. This one is sure to get interesting.

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Miles loses it at Brisbane media

“What a shambles,” said Nine’s top-rating Brisbane news presenter Andrew Lofthouse, as he opened the 6pm bulletin. For Sandra Sully on Ten, it was: “Tonight the (Queensland) state government is blaming everyone else for the debacle.”

The knives were out across TV news bulletins on Wednesday night after wannabe Queensland premier Steven “Giggles” Miles went rogue as the stand-in for Annastacia Palaszczuk in a train wreck press conference.

The briefing was allegedly meant to ease confusion over who will pay for $150 Covid-19 PCR tests for those arriving in Queensland when borders open next month.

Instead, Miles — Palaszczuk’s self-appointed heir apparent — managed the rare feat of somehow offending all major political journalists from every media outlet in Queensland, uniting even News Corp and the ABC.

Steven Miles accused the Brisbane press gallery of conspiring with federal Liberal MPs to undermine the Queensland government. Picture: Dan Peled

Miles bravely accused the cream of the Brisbane press gallery of conspiring with federal Liberal MPs to undermine the Queensland government. The allegation left Miles friendless in the Brisbane media.

As we all know, there’s been growing tension between federal Health Minister Greg Hunt and Palaszczuk on the issue — seemingly created out of thin air by the Premier — that people entering the state over the holidays would have to pay $150 each for Covid-19 tests.

But bizarrely, in Palaszczuk’s absence, Miles blamed Queensland journalists for creating the test controversy.

After one question from Nine’s Sophie Upcroft about why it had taken the Palaszczuk government so long to confirm the tests would be free, Miles fired back: “Federal MP’s are feeding you these stories.”

When another question was asked about inconsistencies in the Queensland government’s responses in recent days, a cranky Miles again blamed the journalists: “We don’t write the stories, you all were.”

After a cringeworthy 20 minutes of back and forth along these lines, the increasingly agitated Brisbane press pack started to ask when Miles’s boss would be coming back.

As Ten’s Johnpaul Gonzo put it to Miles: “You’ve been left here to come out and clean up this mess today. Where is the Premier? Is she in hiding?”

Miles replied: “Ahh, that’s a question you’ll have to put to her office.”

But after his superb lesson in how to lose friends and alienate the media last Wednesday, is Miles still Palaszczuk’s heir apparent?

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What happens to Paine’s radio gig?

Being in the media spotlight can be an unforgiving gig. In the wake of Tim Paine stepping away from cricket indefinitely on Friday after relinquishing his Australian captaincy following the release of his private text messages, a burgeoning radio career also appears to be in some doubt.

Just before the cricket season, Paine completed a successful two-month run this year as co-host of a new Friday breakfast show on SEN throughout Tasmania with Richmond AFL star Jack Riewoldt, and looked set to have another radio run on SEN in 2022. Paine won plaudits that suggested he was a natural, and had a bright future in radio.

Cricketer Tim Paine. Picture: Getty Images

But as in politics, a week can be a long time in media. SEN owner and sports broadcaster Craig Hutchison was uncharacteristically tight-lipped on his regular Sounding Board podcast on his network when the subject of Paine’s future in radio was brought up.

The podcast’s co-host, AFL journalist Damian Barrett, was like a dog with a bone on the subject, asking Hutchison in five different ways whether he would “continue to employ Tim Paine”, after being stonewalled by his on-air partner.

An audibly-irritated Hutchison first accused his co-host of “not listening” to him, before telling him there was “no point answering hypothetical questions”.

Eventually, it came out: he was “disappointed in him and for him”, Hutchison said.

“We’ll sit down at the end of the summer, as we were always going to do,” Hutchison said.

“He’s made a mistake. I think he’s fundamentally at heart a good person. And I think there’s so much I don’t know or understand that I wouldn’t mind understanding better. … I’ve been struggling with it a little, like everybody, trying to understand the facts. Because as they’re tabled, they’re indefensible.”

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